Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Since its publication by Sierra Club Books more than two decades ago, The River Why has become a classic, standing with Norman Macleans A River Runs Through It as our eras most widely read fiction about fly-fishing. This captivating and exuberant tale is told by Gus Orviston, an irreverent young fly fisherman and one of the most appealing heroes in contemporary American fiction.

Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus decides to strike out on his own, taking refuge in a remote riverbank cabin to pursue his own fly-fishing passion with unrelenting zeal. But instead of finding fishing bliss, Gus becomes increasingly troubled by the degradation of the natural world around him and by the spiritual barrenness of his own life. His desolation drives him on a reluctant quest for self-discovery and meaningultimately fruitful beyond his wildest dreams.

Stylistically adept and ambitious in scope, The River Why is a touching and powerful novel by an important voice in American fiction.

In a new Afterword written for this twentieth-anniversary edition, David James Duncan reflects on the genesis of his book and on the surprising link between fishing and wisdom.

Review

Review

"In the company of Catch-22 and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." The Houston Post

Synopsis

Not in recent memory has there been such a unique and vibrant fictional character  a character who could make us laugh so easily, feel so deeply, who speaks with such startling truth about the way we live  as Gus Orviston, the irreverent young flyfisherman in The River Why.

Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus embarks on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery along his beloved Oregon rivers. What he unexpectedly finds is man's wanton destruction of nature and a burning desire to commit himself to its preservation.

Here then is the funny, sensitive, very special story of one man's search: for meaning, for love, and for a sane way to live...a tale that gives a contemporary voice to the concerns and hopes of all living things on this beautiful, watery planet Earth.

About the Author

David James Duncan is the author of the novel The Brothers K; River Teeth, a joint memoir and collection of stories; and an essay collection, My Story as Told By Water. The River Why ranks thirty-fifth on the San Francisco Chronicle list of The 20th Century's 100 Best Books of the American West. The Brothers K is an American Library Association Best Books Award-winner and a New York Times Notable Book. Both novels won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award.

Duncan has read and lectured all over the United States on wilderness, the writing life, the nonmonastic contemplative life, the fly fishing life, and nonreligious literature of faith. His work has appeared in Harper's, Outside, Orion, The Sun, Sierra, Big Sky Journal, Northern Lights, Gray's Sporting Journal, and many other publications. He lives with his family on a Montana trout stream.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating 5 (7 comments)

Upon making a new friend recently, I was examining her collection of books displayed on the shelves in her living room. I saw David James Duncan's "Brothers K" and mentioned how much I had enjoyed reading that book. We both agreed that it was one of our favorite novels. She suggested that I should read Duncan's book "The River Why" and loaned me her copy. What a blessing this book is. It is a fantastic and fascinating coming of age story told gloriously through the eyes of a young fly-fisherman as he learns to navigate spirituality, community, his natural environment, and love. The story is wonderful, but that almost didn't matter to me because the author's prose is so masterful that I would have been enthralled regardless of the subject matter. On several occasions I texted the book's owner with sentences that leaped off the page and dazzled me with their humor, cleverness, or profundity. How wonderful it is to continue discovering literature I've missed, and I'm thankful for friends who are willing to share the books they love so others can be blessed by them. Highly recommended.

The story that was a river.
This story begins in the pool of stagnant water of Gus’s life as a boy growing up in Portland, Oregon. He is a prodigal fisher-kid, born to a pair as compatible as Lord Byron and Calamity Jane. The only points on which the three of them converge is the water and the fish that sway within, and their affection for Gus's little brother, Bill Bob. Bill Bob wants nothing to do with water, but swims in metaphysical waters like one born with gills.
Gus's family is in a state of perpetual conflict, particularly with regards to the method by which fish should be taken from the water. The battle of worms vs. flies rages on a daily basis, revealing a deep disconnect between his parents.
After graduation without honors, Gus's river leaps the log jam, and glides post-haste to a cabin on Oregon's fictitious Tamawanis river. Isolated, he spends all his time following his Ideal Schedule: Sleeping, fishing, eating, drinking and sleeping again. Instead finding utter happiness, one such as myself would expect, he sinks and spins as though he's caught in the eddy of a waterfall. His philosophical minded friend, Titus, offers him hand and pulls him free.
Free flowing again the story meanders through remembrances of his childhood, through ancient forests that fell victim to refir madness, through Sherar’s falls fished by the Native American, Tomas Bigeater, who remembers his spirit, and by other Native Americans who cannot. A branch of the river flows through the city of Portland and dies, while the main story flows on. The river is rife with riffles of laughter, between pools of deep clarity, and eddies of beauty, and murky stretches of disorientation.
Sometimes the river passes through the physical into the metaphysical, to return luminous. It is alive with spirited trout, minnows of greatness and longing, ugly yet delectable nymphs, and worms wrapped in mud like Twinkies. This story-river makes fun of itself, gives and gets, despairs and hopes. It bubbles from it's spring wondering at its purpose, finds its spirit, all the while asking, “Why?”
David James Duncan has written a beautiful river that I will float, fish, skinny dip, and refresh my spirit in again, and again, and again.

This is one of my all-time favourite books. It is about fishing, philosophy and finding love. I yearn to go fishing every time I read it. I would recommend this book to anyone. You don't have to be a fisher to appreciate this story.

In addition to being a fantastic novel plot-wise, The River Why does an excellent job incorporating what so few novels do...extensive philosophical discussion. Viewed through the lens of a young man torn between his father's almost religious devotion to fly fishing and his mother's unswerving dedication to bait-fishing, we are exposed to the relevant issues of environmental stewardship and self-awareness. Everything his father holds dear comes from a treatise on angling, and everything his mother holds dear aims to antagonize her husband and masks itself as down-home common sense. As the main character, Gus, grows up and leaves home for a Waldenesque solitary existence fishing on a Pacific Northwest river, he finds himself questioning life, and even the merit of his favorite hobby - fishing. The degradation of the natural world seems to delegitimize this central element of his life, and he begins an inward journey of self-discovery. Love, friendship, knowledge and respect of one's landbase all come into play, and Duncan's quirky but intellectual humor pervades the text throughout. Reading The River Why not only enriches the reader's understanding of fishing, environmental issues and relationships...it enriches the reader's understanding of him/herself. A truly great piece of literature by a gifted author.